Discussion with Stimac was blown out of proportion: Thapa

By Jagannath Chatterjee

New Delhi, Dec 16 (SocialNews.XYZ) Moments after the All India Football Federations (AIFF) Technical Committee met national coach Igor Stimac on November 29, reports emerged that the committee led by Shyam Thapa had spoken to Stimac about the teams performance in the World Cup qualifiers against Bangladesh and Afghanistan. In fact, it was also said that the committee had made its displeasure known on Indias failure to win the two games.

Speaking to IANS, Thapa clarified that it was a matter blown out of proportion and that it was a mere discussion and there were even talks of how the team had improved and there was a sense of fight in the way the boys played on the field. He said that the coach was just told that there could have been some more attacking football played and that doesn't amount to disappointment.

"We had a discussion and we agreed about the improvement in the current style of play and fighting spirit of the Indian team. But, we told him that we could have played more attacking football against them as they are lower ranked teams.

"We played good football against the higher ranked teams, but then, we played defensive football instead of attacking football against those two teams. It was just about discussing these things and why we didn't capitalise after we had the upper hand," Thapa clarified.

Thapa also agreed with the fact that there is a shortage of striker as there is no one the team can bank on after current skipper Sunit Chhetri.

"I told the coach that you have to prepare someone from the upcoming youngstars otherwise once Chhetri retires, there is no striker. How long will Chhetri continue? Though we have got some award recently for our youth development programme, we need to focus on our youth development programme more," he said.

Thapa reiterated that what he wanted to mean was that it was important to win against Bangladesh and Afghanistan so as to remain in a competitive position.

"We agreed that the coach didn't get proper preparation time. We also spoke to the General Secretary that we should have planned our home calendar in a proper way. We should have spoken to the clubs also in advance. Knowing that the World Cup qualifiers are there -- which comes once in four years and are important matches -- we should have told the clubs participating in the ISL or I-League matches also to release the players at least for ten days. That was actually my point," Thapa concluded.

Source: IANS